Late on Wednesday Microsoft Corp unveiled a new mobile Web browser with the intention of making surfing a rich experience on mobiles and wireless networks as well. The browser, which is code-named Deepfish, can be accessed from Microsoft's Live Labs Web site.
Deepfish displays the image of a page being viewed by users, who can then zoom into their highlighted area. The zooming process is said to be very quick and easy. The main idea of Deepfish is that it maintains the page layout, as it exists on larger screens.
Most web browsers reformat a page to be viewed on a small screen, but Deepfish maintains the same look as is accessed on a PC. Gary William Flake, director of Microsoft Live Labs explained Deepfish's logic in a written statement. He said mobile browsing is "often less than intuitive, the pages don't look like what you've come to expect on the desktop and it takes a long time for a page to load. Deepfish aims to solve that problem."
Flake added that the browser also made surfing faster because it loaded only the part of the page that interested the user. "On current mobile browsers, it can typically take up to a minute or more for a web page to render," he said. On Deepfish the experience was much faster, "Detailed information is only retrieved as needed or in the background," he added.
Deepfish is available for download from the Live Labs website. The downloads are only on a first-come, first-serve basis and would be disabled after Microsoft reaches an unspecified target.
